New Year Recalibrations, Admissions, and Directions (Patreon)

Good evening, dear patrons

I've left you all alone for far too long! Thanks for your patience with my lengthier absence. It's time for a re-cap and a recalibration. Long post incoming!

I've paused everyone's billing cycle for February, so if you're wondering why your Patron review/receipt at the end of the month looks a little lighter than usual, that's why!

(It me.)

(I'm why.)

I'll be continuing to pause the billing cycle for this platform for a while to see if that's the right route for me in a more permanent way (gulp) while I complete current projects.

As always, I appreciate your patronage, and if you'd like to redirect your support to artists who are actively creating in more regular ways I warmly encourage you to do so! I'd like to take this moment to firmly reassure you that I will not (and never do, anyways) scrutinize your unsubscription with a grumpy, judgey scowl affixed to my face. If you'd like to unsubscribe, please imagine me giving you a big smile as you do it, a warm (freshly hand-sanitizer'd) firm handshake, while I say a heartfelt "Thank you". Okay? Okay.

Phew. Now that we've gotten that out of the way–

Let me chat about what the upcoming year looks like, and what's been happening for me recently. It's a big messy mix of different factors adding up to the above decision, so I apologize in advance for the lack of logic/order to it all:

(1) The strength of this Patreon has historically been writing about my travel performances or my creation process in the moment, and there hasn't been much 'in the moment' lately.
Yes, we've had a couple beautiful, brief flashes ("The Germany Story", publishing SLOW CIRCUS the early Barbette adventures), but things have been quiet. I've been starved of motivation and content to share here for the simple reason that (a) there continues to be a paucity of international travel and performing with the pandemic ongoing, and (b) any lines I've put in the water for grant applications (like the big Barbette grant) won't come back with "fail" or "success" results until the end of February (and, should they even be successful, wouldn't begin until summer).

(2) There IS a "BIG" project happening this year, and it's the long-form writing project about my experience at Cirque de Demain. I'm writing this project until August (with planned gaps for on-camera time for shooting the end of S3 of Motherland).  

  I am SO EXCITED to have been given the opportunity to flesh this story out to its full breadth with some financial support from the Toronto Arts Council, but it's not a project that lends itself to being shared in bits and pieces on Patreon. I know that–at least for my personal creative writing process–this is material that doesn't need witnesses for quite some time. You'd better believe that I'll be shouting it from the rooftops when this writing reaches some sort of stage where it's ready for wider consumption, but that time is not now, and that time is not soon.

(*deep breath*)

(*steels self*)

(*okay here we go*):

(3) The TV contracts I've worked in recent times have made some aspects of my life really different over the last year. A major one is how I interact with people on the internet: how much I can (or can't) physically answer in a day; and trying to draw new boundaries on the fly that reflect healthy levels of communication and privacy. This is across all platforms. I'd like to be honest that my experience managing this Patreon also changed after some of the work I've done in the last year aired / ended up on their destined streaming platforms.

As my level of visibility online increased, people started being able to find this Patreon who don't know me or enjoy interacting with me because of circus training things, circus history, creation stuff, my writing, and the way that my old guard of Patrons here did. Cool! Right?

More digital visibility can be, in theory, a good thing. More people being exposed to the absolute awesomeness of contemporary circus, my own weird little place in it, and whatever other little weirdos I can shine a spotlight onto with my writing.

But I am finding that it has made some of my digital spaces ... disorganized. I've found this quite difficult to adapt to, because it's not the intended purpose of this space, and I tend to organize the digital spaces I occupy with pretty rigid rules in order to make them make sense to me (cough autism cough).

Don't get me wrong: folks finding me through the avenue of having seen me on their screens can be a wonderful way to meet people I otherwise never would have crossed paths with, and I have! But unfortunately these are not the only kinds of interactions this increased visibility has brought. A growing number of the interactions I have here with the folks who have found me through TV/Film things have been very stressful.

In short, it seems like some folks figured out that signing up for this Patreon meant I was going to give them a lot more attention than I can, or do, other online spaces (especially through DMs), rather than signing up out of a genuine interest in my work or the deeply held convictions many of us have here about what it means to be a patron of the arts.  People were getting very rude, very aggressive, or very upset– very quickly– if they didn't get what they wanted (or felt entitled to get) from me in terms of contact, communication, emotional labour, etc.  While they are by no means the majority, these interactions have had an extremely draining effect on me where I find myself destabilized for long periods of time after finding whatever resolution makes sense. Solutions to this issue feel elusive, convoluted, or complicated.

Patreon exists as a place that the 98% majority of you use it as: as a place to support the work of the artists you love, or whose work you think is important or interesting. The majority of patrons here have been fantastic sources of light in the darkness, curious and supportive onlookers, or insightful commenters – and I am deeply grateful to all of you. I'm just struggling somewhat to make this a space that feels good and safe to be in, for me. I know I can do it, I just need some time to figure out how.

And,

Finally, 

(4) I'm not able to sustain a writing practice (yet?) while working on a TV/film project.
I'm not sure if this will be the case on all projects in the future (I hope not, but I'm not sure if this is a reasonable hope for my capacities), but currently it seems that the unavoidable reality of being a trans artist playing trans characters on TV shows/film means that I have an outsized amount of emotional and educational labour to perform on–set and off–set on any given day/week. It's not one particular show; it's every show I've worked on. I hope that the work I do outside of my actual job description in this capacity is building towards a time where it's no longer needed, but that time is not now. Combined with the unspoken social ballet of bureaucracy, nepotism, and sheer dumb luck  that permeates everything in the entertainment industry, I feel like I'm trying to dance with knives taped to my feet and the slightest miscalculation will slice me. It feels important, but it is also draining. It is an opportunity I try to find and appreciate the beautiful moments in, and it is also exhausting. I've come to accept that I cannot put out writing at the same time I'm trying to do a good job and make a positive impact in these work scenarios.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"So What Does That All Mean, Ess?"

This Patreon evolved from its initial travel-writing format, to a home for the Writing the Circus zines, to a place where I built out the amazing SLOW CIRCUS coffee table book, and was a home several times over for different grant-supported creation processes. I expect that it will evolve again. I'm just not sure what way it's going to go yet. (Will we grow legs and go boldly forth from the primordial muck of my ocean-brain onto land? Will we develop fantastically beautiful chromatophores and stay in the seas to be cuttlefish-like disco balls? Who knows).

The factors mentioned above that asterisk-line haven't left me with much energy to write while I'm juggling them. The writing I'm obligated to do is the aforementioned long-form TAC-funded project which I won't be sharing in-progress pieces of, and which I'm working away on in between on-camera obligations. I'd also be leaving out a significant part of the big picture if I didn't briefly mention that I've found I'm unable to mask or push myself as hard as I used to be able to, prior to my autism diagnosis last September. I used to force myself to do All The Things I (told myself I) Needed To Do at the expense of my emotional health, mental health, and executive function. It's simply not an option for me anymore (or right now ... who knows).

And so the net result is . . . a very quiet Patreon.

These are experiences I could write about. These are experiences I would like to write about.

I'm prone to the pitfalls of black-and-white thinking, and a not-small part of me is like, "Ess, this Patreon is about circus; it's not about you writing about whatever thought crosses your mind."  Now, I'm also capable (at times) of going outside of myself to see where such rigid thinking doesn't benefit me. I'm aware that the above description might be one of those instances. So:

There is a possibility of restructuring this Patreon towards writing about a wider range of topics than the original circus-orientation of the page–– about gender identity and trans issues, about autism, about the things that are taking up an outsized amount of space in my life–– but I need time to think about this and explore that writing privately first. There's an equal likelihood that I will retire this Patreon in favour of using my mailing list as my writing outlet and method of connection with people, and forgo the financial support you offer here in favour of the emotional stability of a less-fraught method of dissemination. Whichever direction I take, down the road, I will indeed let you know.

Thank you all once more for your interest, support, and mighty patronage over these past months and years.

This isn't the end; it's just goodbye for now.
Take care of yourselves, until we meet again!

Xo

- ess